Shunichi Tokura -- I'm Just A Man

 

Composer-arranger Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）has a list of his works on his J-Wiki that not surprisingly extends for a good country mile down the page and he is currently represented on 55 articles on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" as a songwriter. I've known him for quite a long while throughout KKP's history with him providing huge hits for acts such as Pink Lady and Linda Yamamoto（山本リンダ）.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I finally realized that Tokura did have his singing phase in his career. Well, I shouldn't be surprised since there have been plenty of songwriters who are also singers with singles and albums released...but until recently, I didn't think that Tokura was one of them since I hadn't been aware of a discography by him. However, during his university years in the late 1960s, he had been a vocalist for the folk group The Panic Men（ザ・パニック・メン）and another band called Julians（ジュリアンズ）.

Tokura also had his solo period throughout the 1970s with a smattering of singles as well as a couple of albums. One such album, "This Is My Song" came out in August 1973 and I can't help it when I see his handsome face on the cover and remark that the fellow looked like a Japanese David Cassidy. His voice is also very self-assured in English as he sings the final track on the record "I'm Just A Man" which has an intro that is reminiscent of a kayo kyoku and a Carpenters tune at the same time. At the same time, his singing and the arrangement backing him up also remind me of a lot of mellow pop songs on the radio from that time that were sung by folks such as John Denver and perhaps Jim Croce. As for "I'm Just A Man", while Tokura provided the melody, the lyricist was Bill Crutchfield according to the JASRAC database.

So, for his 56th article, Tokura finally gets on the byline!👍